A Beautiful Forever (24 page)

“Fuck you Paige,
you
don’t get to decide this. I’m
coming back – deal with it.”

My mouth drops open in surprise as the line disconnects, and
I burst into tears all over again. He can’t come back. He's not supposed to.
Our relationship was supposed to be a beautiful moment in time, it’s not
supposed to be forever – people like me don’t get a forever. I spent my past
prostituting myself for accommodation, for food, for alcohol and for drugs and
that lifestyle cost a baby girl her life – people like me don’t get happy endings,
I shouldn’t even have a life at all.

A loud banging on my front door wakes me from my
alcohol-induced  sleep. I sit up slowly and eye the almost empty bottle sitting
open on the coffee table, screwing the lid back on and pushing it away.

My laptop is sitting open, so I hit the space bar to wake it
up, expecting to find pictures of Paige. I need to set eyes on her, even if
it’s just a photo. Instead, the website for the UK Border Agency is on the
screen; I've applied for a new Visa.

Bang bang bang!
“Come on Elliot! We know you’re
home!” I hear on the other side of the door.

I drag my eyes away from the computer screen and go and open
the door, standing on the other side is my old Uni friend, Gary, and his wife
Stephanie.

“You look like shit,” Gary says as he takes in my
appearance.

“Oh my god, Elliot! Did you bathe in bourbon?! You reek!”
Stephanie complains, fanning her hand in front of her nose.

“Nice to see you both too,” I deadpan.

“Sorry sweetheart, we just weren’t expecting – well… this,”
Stephanie says gesturing at my appearance.

“It’s been a shitty couple of days, come on in,” I say
standing to the side.

Stephanie goes straight into my kitchen and tells me she’s
going to make a strong pot of coffee. I don’t complain because I really need to
check what I did last night. I can’t believe I applied for a Visa while I was
off my face. I go into my email and check all the confirmations. I’ve set up my
biometric interview and everything. Shit.

Stephanie walks back into the lounge room balancing the
three coffees she has made and Gary, who’s been sitting on the other couch
watching me curse myself repeatedly, jumps up to help her.

I nod as she places my coffee beside me on the table and
continue to wildly scan my application, checking that all the details I gave
were correct.

“Elliot,” she starts. “Is there something wrong? Is there
something we can do?”

“No just – ” I click through to the last page of my
application and let out a steady breath. It’s fine; I didn’t fuck it up. I sit
back on the couch and put my hands on either side of my head, suddenly
laughing.

Gary and Stephanie are both looking at me wide eyed,
“Everything ok mate?” Gary ventures.

“More than ok, everything is great,” I tell him, smiling
like an idiot.

“Well, how was your trip? Oh! What did you think of Naomi –
she’s cute huh?” Stephanie asks.

“The trip was… life changing. I’m going back there to live.”

“What!” they both say in unison.

“I met someone on the way over there – not Naomi sorry, but
she's a nice girl though - Her name is Paige and she’s staying there
indefinitely so I'm going back there for her.”

I tell them about Paige, show them a couple of photos but
avoid talking about all the bullshit that kept her there. I don’t want to focus
on any of that right now. I just need to focus on getting back to her. The
whole process will take around three months, and I need to be patient until
then.

As I sit back and drink my coffee, listening to Stephanie
and Gary as they catch me up on their lives while I’ve been away, the memory of
talking to Paige last night filters back to me. She said she loves me with
every fibre of her being. I have to convince her to stop trying to let me go
because I don’t want a life without her. I’m not going to let her ruin this.

Applying the handbrake as I pull up outside the house, I
take a slow steady breath before opening the car door, striding purposefully up
the driveway dragging my suitcase behind me, and rapping loudly on the door.

When the door swings open I’m confronted with my mother’s
surprised face as she drags her eyes over me, pausing when she reaches my
luggage. Her eyes fly back up to mine in question. I’m sure I’m the last person
she expected to be opening her door to.

“I need a place to stay. I think it’s the least you can do
for me considering…” I tell her boldly, refusing to be polite as I step past
her and into her home.

“Of…of course,” she stutters, scrambling down the hallway
and opening a door for me. “You…you can stay i-in here,” she says, flicking on
the light and standing aside so I can enter her guest room. “The bathroom’s
just around the corner, and the kitchen is at the end of the hall. Can I get
you anything?” she asks sounding calmer.

“No,” I answer simply, stepping into the room with my suitcase
in hand. I turn around to look at her expectant face, an unfriendly glare on
mine as I reach out and start to close the door. Before it’s almost clicked
shut, I open it slightly, meeting her eyes once again. “This doesn’t change
anything,” I affirm. I don’t want her getting any ideas that we’ll be playing
happy families any time soon.

“Of course,” she whispers, her eyes swimming with tears as I
click the door closed and spin the lock on the other side.

Pulling the covers back on the bed, I remove my shoes and
climb in, curling myself into the foetal position as I close my eyes, thinking
about everything that has happened this past week.

After collapsing at the airport, Naomi took me back to the
flat where I spent every day since then lying on the couch and refusing to
move. I was offered my bed back, but I couldn’t bring myself to live there
again, not when being there reminds me so much of him. I’ve felt constantly
sick and can’t seem to eat. I feel wrong without him and hate myself so much
that eventually I had to get out of there. I didn’t tell anyone that I was
leaving or where I was going, I just waited until they were all out of the flat
and wrote a thank-you note before leaving and driving here. I know - I’m
chicken shit, I left a note again.

Why I chose here I do not know, perhaps I’m still trying to
punish myself, or perhaps I feel like this is the only place he won’t come to
look for me. But for some reason, it’s the only place I could think of.

Despite the fact that he calls me every day, I still haven’t
spoken to him since that night he called me drunk - I don’t even know if he
remembers our conversation. Instead, when he calls, I watch the words
‘International Call’ blink on my screen and wait for it to go to voicemail then
listen to it later.

He says he's coming back to me, but his emotions are still
raw right now, and I feel that if I ignore him, he’ll give up and get on with
his life. That’s what’s best for both of us. He deserves so much more than what
I can give him.

I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, beginning the same
cycle that I’ve been following this past week. I don’t know how many days, and
nights pass, but I have vague memories of food being offered and conversations
being attempted as my parents hover about, not sure what make of the wreck of a
daughter who's returned to them.

“Do you think we can talk?” my mother says during one of my
more lucid moments. “You’ve been in here for almost a week Paige.”

Rolling away from her, I pull the covers over my head and
shut my eyes, attempting to shut her out as well.

“I’ll leave soon, mother. I just haven’t felt up to finding
somewhere to stay.”

“No… that’s not what I want. I just want to talk – you can
stay as long as you like.”

“Fine – talk.” I say, sitting up dramatically to eye her as
she fidgets with a loose thread on her sleeve.

“First I wanted to give you this,” she says placing a
pharmacy bag on the bed in front of me. I look at it but don’t bother touching
it. “I’m just trying to help – you’ve been so sick since you got here…”

I pick up the bag and put it on the bedside table. “Thank
you,” I say flatly.

The loose thread is now tightly wrapped around her finger as
she continues to pull at it. “I want to tell you I’m sorry Paige – for
everything. I never should have done what I did.”

“What? Thrust me into a life on the street?”

She sucks in her breath, her eyes wide. “You didn’t actually
live on the street did you?”

I frown and look at her. I can’t believe how naïve she’s
being. “Sometimes yes - I was on the street. Do you even understand what you
did to me? I couldn’t just go and stay with a friend, or get a place on my own
– I was 15 and $200 was nothing. It barely fed me for a couple of weeks. I was
a virgin when I left and within a month, I was letting men use me until they
were sick of taking care of me - just so I could sleep inside.”

She’s standing in front of me, her eyes wide in horror, as
tears fall down her face while I tell her every gory detail about the life she
sent me to. When I tell her about Phoenix, she breaks down, crying so loudly
that Daniel comes barrelling in from another room, demanding to know what's
happening.

“All I did was tell her the truth,” I say, my voice cool and
calm as I level with him.

“Do you know how upset your mother has been this past couple
of months?” he starts in on me, defending his wife.

“No Daniel!” my mother calls out, silencing him. “She has
every right – I’ve been a horrible mother.”

He stands there looking between us, two women, who look
nothing alike bar our height and bone structure, but both of us his family.
“Perhaps we should all go and try to sort this out together,” he says quietly.

I find myself following behind them, taking a seat at the
dining room table and waiting while they talk quietly to each other in the
kitchen, making a tray with tea and biscuits. I’m not hungry or thirsty, but I
accept it anyway.

My mother sits across from me with Daniel by her side and
begins, “Paige, I want you to know that I have always loved you.”

I have to force myself not to roll my eyes as I wait for her
to continue.

“I had been travelling backwards and forwards between
Australia and the UK for about a year for work, and Daniel was a colleague.
Every time I visited, he was so kind to me. I tried to resist my attraction
because I was already married and had a son but eventually we both fell prey to
temptation.” She looks at Daniel, her eyes so filled with adoration that it
hurts my heart to watch them. “I was so in love with him, and he was with me
too. However, I couldn’t stay with him. I had to go back and look after my
family.

“When I found out I was pregnant. I knew you were Daniel's,
but I hid all of my dates from your father and pretended that I fell pregnant
before I’d left.

“You were premature, so they kept you in an incubator, and
your father couldn’t understand what went wrong because by what I told him, you
should have been full term. That coupled with your dark shock of hair made him
realise that you weren’t actually his.

“We had a lot to lose by separating, so we decided to stay
together and tell the world that you were his. Then another baby, your sister
got added to the mix a couple of years later and things went from bad to worse.

“Your father hated that I seemed to play favourites with you
and would torment me over my affair. Slowly I started to resent you, I thought
that if you weren’t around – then my life would be better, so I sent you out, I
drove you away.

“When your father learned what I had done he was livid with
me - despite his anger over what I had done, he didn’t hate you – he just
didn’t know how to love a child that wasn’t his.

“Slowly our relationship crumbled and we separated, I gave
him custody of Adam and Sophie and came back here and well…” She looks at
Daniel again and smiles with quivering lips. He places his arm around her,
resting his hand on hers and squeezing it gently.

Tears are falling down my face as I listen. My life has just
been one horrible mistake after another – the first one being hers. “Did you
know about me?” I ask Daniel. “I mean, before I contacted you. Did you know
about me?”

“I did,” he says. “I had to sign that I was your father for
your birth certificate.”

“And you just left me there?” I stare at him, watching him
as he thinks through his answer.

“I thought it was what was best. I didn’t know you were
being treated poorly.”

“But you married her anyway?”

“I did. She made mistakes Paige. Lord knows I've made
mistakes too in my life, but those mistakes don’t change the fact that she’s
the woman I love.”

I laugh humourlessly, “You’re very passionate for an
Englishman,” I say flatly.

“Well my mother, your grandmother, is Italian. She was very
passionate.”

I look at my mother, “What about Adam and Sophie? You just
left them too?”

She looks down at her hands and nods, “I left everyone,” she
whispers.

I’m doing my best to fill in my time while I wait for a new
visa to be approved. I went for my interview and produced all the necessary
documents to prove my heritage, so I could apply for a five-year  visa. My
grandmother is English, so I could apply based on my ancestry. Now I’m in limbo
while I wait. It’s already been over a month; I'm hoping it doesn’t take much
longer.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve given up my flat, sold most of my
furniture and moved in with my mother to help save enough money as a backup for
when I go over there. She’s offered to help me out, but I want to do it on my
own.

I also went and visited my father for the first time in over
two years. He's married now to a girl who isn’t really that much older than me,
but he seems happy. I realised when I was in the UK that I had no business
being angry with him, after hearing what Paige had gone through in her life, I
felt I needed to be happy my dad cared enough to try to steer me in the direction
he thought was best for me.